He was highly regarded, but nevertheless he fell into great poverty. Baluze gives him a high character. He was not alive in 1671, but the date of his death is uncertain. He wrote, 1. Anti-Patellaros. 2. Epistola de Unione Ecclesiarum ad Alexandrinum et Hierosolymorum Patriarchas. 3. Anti-Campanella in Compendium redactus. He wrote also some works on the philosophy of Aristotle. (Biog. Univ. Suppl.)

ATHANIS, a writer on the affairs of Sicily, mentioned by Athenæus, and from whom we learn that Dionysius took the same liberty with the language of Greece that he did with the persons of his subjects.

ATHELSTAN. See ADELSTAN. ATHENÆUS, the name of two famous mechanicians of antiquity. One flourished about the year 210 before the Christian era, and was the author of a treatise on Machines of War, which may be found in the collection of the works of the ancient mathematicians, printed at Paris in 1693, fol. Gr. and Lat. A very fine MS. of this work was formerly in the possession of Dr. Askew, but the genuineness of it has been questioned, and Athenæus is not to be found among the Greek writers on the mechanical arts enumerated by Pappus. The other, Athenæus of Byzantium, lived in the reign of the emperor Gallienus, by whom he was employed to fortify such parts of Thrace and Illyricum, as were exposed to the incursions of the Scythians.

ATHENÆUS, (Avalos,) an ancient Greek physician, and founder of the sect called Pneumatici, was born at Attalia in Cilicia, according to Galen (De Different. Puls. lib. iv. cap. 10, p. 749, ed. Kühn); or, as Cælius Aurelianus says (De Morb. Acut. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 74) at Tarsus; probably about the middle of the first century A.D. Little is known of his life, except that he practised at Rome, enjoyed a great reputation (Galen, De Meth. Med. lib. vii. cap. 3), and was the tutor of Agathinus (Galen, De Dignosc. Puls. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 787), and Theodorus (Diog. Laert. Vit. Philos. lib. ii. § 104). He distinguished himself by his attempts to overthrow the doctrines of the Methodici, as they had been originally laid down by Asclepiades, and afterwards modified by Themison (see ASCLEPIADES and THEMISON); but in this, according to Galen, (De Element. ex Hippocr. lib. i. cap. 9, p. 486,) he was not always successful. He appears to have written several works which were highly valued,

but of which nothing remains except two short fragments preserved by Oribasius (Collect. Medicin. lib. ix. cap. 5 and 12), and the allusions which are made to his opinions in the writings of Galen. His doctrine was, that it is not fire, air, water, and earth, which are the true elements,

as

It

was commonly supposed, but that their qualities are so; viz. heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. To these he added a fifth element, which he called πvevμa, or spirit, from whence his sect derived its name. (Galen, Introduct. cap. 9.) This spirit he supposed to penetrate all bodies, serving to keep them in their natural state, and by its derangement giving rise to disease. was to the natural and involuntary dilatation of this Tvevpa in the arteries and heart that he attributed the pulse, and he showed great subtlety in describing the different species, and their value in assisting to form a correct diagnosis. (Galen, De Differ. Puls. lib. iv. cap. 14.) Nothing is known of his mode of practice, except that he paid great attention to dietetics, and also to the state of the atmosphere, and the healthiness of different situations, which is the subject of one of the fragments preserved by Oribasius. The most eminent physician of the sect of the Pneumatici, and indeed the only one whose writings remain, was Aretaus (see ARETEUS); but the very scanty remains of the pneumatic doctrine do not enable us to judge whether its spirit really was, as some have supposed, analogous to the vital principle of some modern physiologists. The Pneumatici do not appear to have enjoyed very great celebrity or influence upon the practice of medicine, for Seneca, when enumerating (Epist. 95, § 9) the different medical sects that were famous in his time, makes no mention of them. Kühn, in his Additam. ad Elench. Med. Vet. a J. A. Fabricio Exhib. refers to a pamphlet by Jo. Ca. Osterhausen (which the writer of this article has never seen), entitled, Hist. Sect. Pneumaticor. Med. Altorf, 1791, 8vo. There is, in the Royal Library at Paris, an unedited treatise, entitled Aonvalov et a ovvoyis akpißns, Athenæi de Urinis Synopsis accurata, but as the MS. belongs to the sixteenth century, it is very doubtful whether it is the work of the founder of the sect of the Pneumatici.

ATHENÆUS, of NAUCRATIS, in Egypt, the Varro, as he has been called, of Greek literature, flourished at the commencement of the third century. Of his life nothing is known, and of his works,

on the Resurrection went through many editions in the sixteenth century, and was translated into Italian, by Girolamo Faleti, in 1556, (Venice, 4to;) into English, by Richard Porder, in 1573, (Lond. 8vo;) and into French, by Arnaud du Ferrier, along with the Apology, in 1577, (Bordeaux, 8vo.) The Apology had been previously translated into French by Guy Gaussart, in 1574, (Paris, 8vo;) and an English version of both works was published by David Humphreys, 8vo, 1714. The treatise on the Resurrection was again translated into French by P. L. Renier, 8vo, Breslau, 1753. The best editions of the originals are that by Edward Dechair, Gr. and Lat., Oxford, 1706; and the one by Lindner, with valuable notes, 8vo, Lips. 1774, with his Curæ Posteriores, 8vo, 1775. A dull and insipid romance was published at Paris, at the end of the sixteenth century, entitled Du vray et parfaict Amour, &c.; pretending to be translated from the Greek of Athenagoras, but in reality only a fabrication by Martin Fumée, sieur de Genillé.

ATHENAIS. See EUDOCIA. ATHENAS, (Pierre Louis,) was born at Paris, in 1752. In 1786 he went to Nantes, and applied himself to some chemical speculations which, however, were frustrated by unforeseen circumstances. In 1695 he was made director of the mint of Nantes, and afterwards secretary of the Chamber of Commerce there. He was an active member of a learned society at Nantes, and devoted himself to political and rural economy, and commerce, as well as to archæology. The agriculture of the department of the Loire Inférieure owes a great deal to him. He died at Nantes in 1829. He is the author of a great number of tracts on the different subjects that he made his study. (Biog. Univ. Suppl.)

ATHENION, a painter, a native of Maronea, in Thrace, was the disciple of Glaucion of Corinth, a painter of whom no other mention is made. He appears to have been a contemporary of Nicias, as his works are compared by Pliny (35, 11, 40,) to those of that painter, and without any disparity. His colouring was more austere than that of Nicias, but it was not less agreeable. painted a picture of Phylarchus, the historian, for the temple of Eleusis, and at Athens, Achilles discovered by Ulysses disguised as a girl. "Had he not died young," says Pliny, no one would

He

have surpassed him." (Bryan's Dict. Sillig, Catalogus Artificum.)

ATHENION, the leader of the slaves, who made an insurrection in Sicily. About 650 a. U. C. and 104 B. C., the slaves rose in the different provinces, upon the occasion of a decree proposed in their favour by Marius. In many instances they were easily put down, but in Sicily an obstinate war ensued. Salvius, a fluteplayer, was the first chief that was acknowledged by the slaves there, and was called king by them. He had in a short time a very large force under his command. Athenion was at the head of another rising in the neighbourhood of Egesta, and was invited by Salvius to join him. Athenion with 20,000 men, engaged the prætor, Licinius Lucullus, in battle, near Scyrtæum; which after being warmly contested for some time, turned in favour of the Romans, from the circumstance of the disappearance of Athenion, who was wounded, and left for dead. Athenion, however, afterwards escaped from the field of battle, re-assembled his army, and obtained great advantages against the Roman forces. In 653 A. U. C., the senate sent the consul Manius Aquillius with a large army into Sicily. Athenion was killed in single combat with the consul, his army totally routed, and Salvius being then dead, the rebellion was repressed. (Biog. Univ.)

ATHENODORUS, (A@ŋvod@pos,) a Greek physician, probably contemporary with Plutarch, in the second century A.D., who quotes (Sympos. lib. viii. quæst. 9, § 1) a work of his, Tept Twv ini, De Morbis Popularibus, which is no longer extant. In this he said that elephantiasis and hydrophobia first appeared in the time of Asclepiades, on which subject there is a curious and interesting treatise, by J. A. Hofmann, entitled, Rabiei Caninæ ad Celsum usque Historia Critica, Lips. 1826, 8vo, pp. 54.

ATHENODORUS, a statuary, a native of Clitor, whom Pliny (34, 8, 19) enumerates amongst the disciples of Polycletus the elder. Pausanias commemorates his statues of Apollo and Jupiter, which the Spartans dedicated at Delphos. There was another sculptor of this name, who, with Agesander and Polydorus, sculptured the celebrated group of Laocoon and his children.

in Orkney, Atkins drew up an address in the name of the presbytery, containing strong feelings of attachment and loyalty to Charles II. For this, and for his service to the marquis, he was denounced by the council, and was obliged to withdraw to Holland. At the Restoration, he went to London, and was presented to a living in Dorsetshire. In 1677, he was appointed bishop of Murray, and in 1680 he was made bishop of Galloway. He died in 1687. (Athenæ Oxon. vol. ii. Biog. Brit.)

ATKINS, (Robert,) an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was born at Chard, in Somersetshire, in 1626, and studied in Wadham college, Oxford, of which he became a fellow. While young, he was appointed by Cromwell one of his chaplains, but soon became settled in the living of Coopersale in Essex, which he resigned on account of his health, and removed to Exeter, where he soon became celebrated as an able preacher, "one of the best preachers," says his biographer, "in the west." Here he was when the Act of Uniformity was passed, with the provisions of which he could not comply; and, accordingly, ceased to be a minister in the church. He continued to reside at Exeter, where he was greatly respected by many, but harassed by others on account of his nonconformity. He died in 1685. Dr. Calamy gives a large account of his life and character.

ATKINS, (Isaac,) a Jewish writer, who was by birth a Spaniard, but was settled at Amsterdam in the beginning of the seventeenth century. He wrote, in Spanish, a work entitled, A Treasure of Precepts, and translated into Spanish the Chizzuk Amunah, or, Fortress of Faith, an anti-christian work. (See de Rossi Diz. Storico, and also Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana, pp. 19 and 128. The Hebrew work is to be found in Wagenseil's Tela Ignea.)

a

ATKINSON, (Henry,) a mathematician of considerable eminence, was born about 1786, at a small village near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His father was schoolmaster, who inculcated in his son an early and passionate taste for mathematical speculation. Whilst very young he discovered a method for simplifying the approximation to the roots of algebraical equations, by a correct system of transformation of the original equation. This discovery was not made known till 1809, when he read it before the Literary Society of Newcastle, and was not published till after the author's decease, in 1831.

The same method appears to have been discovered, even earlier, by a watchmaker, in the obscurity of a narrow street in the vicinity of Clare-market. (See HOLDRED.) The method, and with it the value of the claims of both, is superseded by the more simple, direct, and continuous method of Horner, which was published before either Atkinson or Holdred had given any public intimation of being in possession of a process having the same object. (See HORNER.) In the second volume of the Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society is an able and elaborate paper on Refractions, by Mr. Atkinson; but his most profound mathematical researches are to be found scattered through the mathematical periodicals of his time, and especially in those valuable works, the Ladies' and Gentlemen's Diaries, and in the Newcastle Magazine, of which he was for several years the mathematical editor.

Mr. Atkinson was not a mere mathematician. He was a good and sound general and classical scholar, and devoted much of his attention to the philosophy of the human mind, though, with the exception of detached essays in the Newcastle Magazine, he published no work on the subject. His was an honest mind searching after truth; and, in private life, his kind and amiable disposition ensured his being beloved and respected.

ATKINSON, (Joseph,) a native of Ireland, distinguished by his wit and affability; born 1743, died October, 1818. He was treasurer of the Ordnance in Dublin, and the friend and associate of Curran, Moore, and the galaxy of Irish genius by which the literary period of the union of Ireland with Great Britain will be remembered.

ATKINSON, (Thomas,) a divine and poet of the seventeenth century, was born in London, and studied in St. John's college, Oxford. In 1636, he took the degree of B.D. being at that time rector of South Warmborough, in Hampshire, a living which he exchanged in 1638, with Dr. Peter Heylin, for Islip, near Oxford. He held the living only a few months, dying in February, 1639. He was buried in the chapel of St. John's college. The preceding account is from the Athenæ Oxonienses, where Wood further says that he had seen in manuscript, two poems by him in Latin verse, directed against Andrew Melvin to which may be added, that there is in the Harleian Library of Manuscripts, in the British Museum, a Latin tragedy by this author, entitled